56 THE STORY OF MY LIFE [1837
visit him, and confessed his attachment to her. There were many obstacles to their marriage of which \ am ignorant; but my mother was always in favour of it, and did much to bring it about. I recollect Annie Barton as often sitting on a stool at my mother's feet.
On our way to Stoke in the preceding autumn, we had diverged to visit Frederick Maurice at his tiny curacy of Bubnell near Leamington. With him lived his sister Priscilla, for whom my mother formed a great friendship, which, beginning chiefly on religious grounds, was often a great trial to her, as Priscilla Maurice, with many fine qualities and great cleverness, was one of the most exacting persons I have ever known. I am conscious of course now of what fretted me unconsciously then, the entire difference of class, and consequent difference in the measurement of people and things, between the Maurices and those my mother had been accustomed to associate with, and of their injurious effect upon my mother he'rself, in inducing her to adopt their peculiar phraseology, especially with regard to religious things. They persuaded her to join in their tireless search after the motes in their brother's eyes, and urged a more intensified life of contemplative rather than active piety, which abstracted her more than ever from earthly interests, and really marred for a time her influence and usefulness. The Maurice sisters were the first of the many so-called " religious" people I have known, who did not seem to realise that Christianity is rather action than thought; not a system, but a life.et, and of the miserable confinement in, when Kate Stanley was with us, seeing a great acacia-tree torn up by the roots and Jesus Christ be shocked?' He comes often and says — 'Will 'ou pray God to make little Augustus good ? ' and asks to ' pray with Mama.?bout his dinner, did imt lie |« (Jod for )Ljiviii(L( him so maiiv ,^'ood things, and I knell him and prayed (J<><1 to forgive him for !*'in^ so nau^Imhr- and the most attractive in Florence. thru